My rheumatic friend sent for me one day, to come and see him in great haste, for, as the messenger said, he could not long continue in such suffering. I found him in the greatest distress, and after making the usual temporary applications, I gave him what I had never given him before--a pretty full dose of tincture of stramonium. It had, in due time, its accustomed effect, and I left him, rather prematurely, to visit another patient in a somewhat distant part of the town, intending, however, to see him again in the evening. But I had not been absent more than an hour, before I was sent for in post-haste. As soon as possible I hastened to the spot. I found my patient in a state somewhat peculiar and not easily described. He was evidently affected by the stramonium; but how, I said to myself, can this be? I certainly did not give him an overdose. Besides, as I well knew, the effects, so long as I remained with him, had been decidedly favorable. The mystery was soon revealed. On finding himself much better, soon after my departure, he had resorted again to the stramonium bottle, which in my haste and contrary to my usual practice, I had left within his reach. The result was a degree of delirium that had alarmed his friends and induced them to send for me. By means of careful and persevering management, a partial recovery soon took place, though a train of incidental evils followed which it is not necessary here to enumerate. The patient was one of those ignorant and selfish individuals on whom a permanent cure can rarely be effected. This circumstance taught me one important lesson which ought to have been impressed on my mind long before. It was, not to leave medicine of any kind within reach of my patients or their friends. In many an instance, medicine thus left has been taken by others, under the belief that since it operated favorably in the case for which it had been prescribed by the physician, it would do so in another case which was vainly supposed to be just like it, when, in truth, it was not at all similar. To the custom of keeping medicine in the house, of any sort, I am equally opposed, and for similar reasons. There will generally be time enough to send for it when its presence is really needed. Such at least is the fact, ninety-nine times in a hundred. And as a set-off against the fact of its being thus useful once in a hundred times, we have to acknowledge the multiplied dangers to which we are exposed, of using it without prescription, and to which we are otherwise exposed by having it constantly before us in our houses. CHAPTER XLIX. CURING CANCER.